This morning I am thinking a bit about fear. Anthony De Mello says there are only two forces at work in our world: love and fear—just those two. Every action that is made is fueled by either love or fear. Love is powerful. It is good, wild, mysterious, tender, etc. But unfortunately fear is also powerful. To be one of the two driving forces in our world, it must be. And it affects us and our relationships in ways we seldom like to admit.
I would like to share two stories about fear impacting my own relationships. There are many more of course, but these two have been more present in my mind as they have been more recent. The first is a story about my relationship with one of my housemates, Joni. She has become one of my good friends in the house, but at first I was a bit intimidated by her. Joni has a wonderful, youthful sense of humor, and a fantastic air of confidence that I have learned a lot from. Joni also has moments like any of us when she gets upset, and her experiences of an intellectual disability and being non-verbal mean those moments can be challenging for her, and for those of us offering her support.
As I began to build my relationship with Joni, I quickly realized fear was impacting it a lot. Two fears really. The first was that maybe Joni just wouldn't like me. We are quite different after all. I am 24 while she is 63. I identify as male while she identifies as female. We have had vastly different life experiences thus far. And yet, I quickly discovered we had a lot in common: love of art, appreciation for good food, and similar senses of humor to name a few. But as our relationship progressed I still found myself worried, and then I realized the second fear: I didn't want to upset her. I was in this constant mode of doing my best to keep Joni happy. And of course this isn't a bad thing—if we care about someone we will obviously do our best to be accommodating and supportive—but I was letting my actions be fueled by fear when they should have been fueled by love.
So I slowly began to reroute my thinking. I stopped doing my best to support Joni because I didn't want to upset her, and I started doing my best to support Joni because I cared about her. I wanted to trust her and for her to trust me. And if something happened, then we would respond how we needed to in that moment. Needless to say, our relationship really started to deepen as things moved forward. Letting go of that stress and fear, helped me recognize and welcome many more gifts from our friendship. And of course I still get upset sometimes, and Joni still gets upset sometimes, but we work through it, and let it go when it's over like any pair of friends would.
As for the second story, I think I am going to save it for tomorrow. It started to get too complex... Tune in to see what it is about.
Keep peace and keep creating,
Parker <3
P.S. Happy Two Weeks! Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who have been reading.
